Nicholas Economos is an artist and educator living in sunny Cleveland, Ohio, USA. His art practice includes work in software art, reactive media art, sound, video, and animation. He is an Editor Emeritus for Rhizome.org at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC, previously editing content for the web site and the Rhizome Rare email list over numerous years. His awards include an Individual Artist Project Grant in Film, Media, and New Technology Production from the New York State Council on the Arts and an Individual Excellence Award in Media Arts from the Ohio Arts Council.

He has exhibited at Art Interactive in Cambridge, MA, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, NY, Art in General in New York City, Fylkingen in Stockholm, Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, SESI Gallery in Sao Paulo City, Window Project Space in Auckland, New Zealand, Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, Chiangmai New Media Art Festival in Thailand, DigiFest DXNet in Toronto, and the Cyberarts Festival in Boston. He has been a frequent artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center in Owego, New York and is included in the DVD anthology, "ETC: 1969 - 2009" covering 40 years of video arts at ETC. He was previously a visiting professor with the Department of Expanded Media at the School of Art and Design at Alfred University in Alfred, NY and now teaches in the T.I.M.E.-Digital Arts Department at The Cleveland Institute of Art.

MC: I'd like to begin by exploring your use of the "cut-out" in some of your most well known works. I've been covering your Buff series in various new media related courses for a couple of years now, and several questions and points of discussion are frequently raised. Can you speak first about the dichotomy of absence/presence at work in these pieces: How do you wish this dichotomy to play out for your audience, and what role does the content of the original image play in this scenario?

CC: If I may, I’d like to dissect the viewing experience into three “effects” which the cut-out generates. The “first effect” is the immediate recognition of the void; a mere observation, not an intellectual reaction, per se. The second effect is “the abstract effect,” which would be any subsequent intellectual activity for the viewer. This sets up an ideal and final “reflexive effect”.

The catalyst for the reaction is expectation. Because we expect nudity (in the Buff series) the suggestive poses of the subject and the conditioned responses of the viewer confront the void. This disconnect of what is expected with what is actually there has a variety of reactions in viewers. After digesting the experience, however, the question of what has happened occurs. This question, a momentary wedge in a normal viewing experience, sets up the “abstract effect”. The viewer is questioning the nature of this particular type of imagery as well as the effect of imagery in general on the ...

The Center for Advanced Visual Studies presents
Terminal Air (Institute for Applied Autonomy and Trevor Paglen)

Tad Hirsch (Institute for Applied Autonomy) and experimental
geographer Trevor Paglen will present early research for their new
project, Terminal Air, an interactive installation that enables
audiences to track a fleet of CIA-operated aircraft around the
world. These airplanes, which were first uncovered by an
international network of amateur aviation enthusiasts and later
reported on by various investigative journalists, are known to be
involved in "extraordinary rendition"—the practice of illegally
transporting terrorism suspects to secret overseas military bases
for torture and interrogation. Paglen will also talk about Torture
Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, which he co-
wrote with journalist AC Thompson. Andrew Woods of Harvard Law
School will also speak. Terminal Air is supported by 2006-2007
commission from Rhizome.org.
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The Junction in Cambridge, UK, is seeking to commission an artist (individual or collective) to produce an innovative and exciting high profile public artwork encompassing new technologies for the south façade of its original auditorium. This is the second of two commissions funded by Turnstone Partners and Arts Council England East for the site, the first being Bins and Benches by Greyworld in 2005.

Expressions of interest are invited from artists, to be received before the 1st October 2006.

The budget for this commission is £60,000 (to include fee, production and installation costs). For more information, including a detailed brief, please see www.junction.co.uk/publicart

ROULETTE IS THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE OUR MOVE INTO OUR NEW HOME: 20 GREENE STREET in SOHO. With this new space, Roulette will be expanding activities to include over 100 concerts, sound installations, longer runs of music theater and other large productions such as the “Avant Jazz – Still Moving” festival and the annual “Festival of Mixology.” For our expanded events calendar go to: http://www.roulette.org/

Peeesseye: Jaime Fennelly, Chris Forsyth & Fritz WelchPeeesseye is a collaborative project developed in 2002 in Brooklyn by Jamie Fennelly, Chris Forsyth and Fritz Welch that performs music/noise/sound work. Peeesseye explores the boundaries of instruments and the acoustical space they inhabit. The group’s collective compositions and improvisations use analogue electronics, oscillators, vocals, guitars, and percussion instruments. Since 2002, Peeesseye has toured the U.S. four times and Europe once and has released four CDs. Recent venues include Tonic, Harvestworks and the Improvised and Otherwise Festival.
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